This Face to the Public

You know, both Rhu and m'lord Batson have been commenting on the fact that this place has been silent as a tomb since the summer. The sad thing is, I must have thirty posts in here that will never see the light of day---they're too personal and too filled with pain. It's weird, some writers, like her Rhuness will blog about the hurt and feel better. I put my feelings on paper and feel shame, embarrassment, and like I'm whining about life and should in the words of my brother ''Man-up Princess" and just keep going. So, instead I'll blog about what makes me feel better.

This got me laughed at most of December by the staff where I work--but I don't care. See, in EB it was a christian fantasy kinda Christmas because;

We sold :

2 The Door Within
2 Rise of the Wyrm Lord

(I love this little book passionately, cos it always has issues with printing, selling, being loved)

1The Final Storm

10 Isle of Swords
4 Isle of Fire

(That's 19 books of Wayne Thomas Batson's in twenty-four days for those counting)

2 Eternity's Edge

1 Legend of the Fire Fish

1 Hand that Bears the Sword

1 Battle for Vast Dominion

1 Rise of the Dibor

2 Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow

And then we also sold by Sharon Hinck

2 Stepping into the Sunlight

1 Symphony of Secrets

1 Restorer

So, seeing all those lovely books go to eager readers was very comforting and really, with all the other crap that went on in December, it was a lovely bright spot to think of all the truth, all the love, and all the hard work that was being delivered, enjoyed, and consumed at the last of 2008!

Updates and Other Things

Ah, God is good.
All the time.

Even when the world is upside down and backwards, especially when the world is upside down and backwards.

My family member who was in the hospital for mental instability is home, and the medication is working better than any of us could have dreamed. Tears are flowing, but this time of thanks, of gratitude, of being undone by His work. This is a chance at a real life for them, this is a chance for life and life more abundantly, for He came, and comes to bring life and not just life which is precious enough when you consider that we were all dead in our sins, but life abundant here on earth, and life everlasting with Him. Gloria a Dios. Somehow that seems more fitting than saying it English, maybe because I remember with great affection the passionate way the Christians in Argentina said it, with all their life and breath and heart behind the words. I am so very grateful, for so many things but for that work in particular.

I am also very weary.

More doctors, more tests, more needles and more lab work for me, not for them. This body of mine, this earth suit that the immortal me wears is hurting. It's not the Designer's fault, see we (that would be all of us) decided that we didn't need Him, and because of that a fatal flaw worked itself into the warp and weave of the suit. It's not immortal, it's decaying around the immortal soul that lives and dwells within it and right now, it's actually attacking itself and undoing the warp and weave at a faster pace than it should. And, because the immortal and the mortal are bound together, I'm hurting.

I'm tired of the dead ends, of the judgments, of the humiliation, and because I am so very tired of it all, I want to hide.

You know, hide?

Oh to be four again and certain that a fort of sheets made me invisible or for a crabapple tree with gnarled branches that could scoop me up and hold me and hide me at the same time.

I don't have bed sheets, or a crabapple tree, but I did find this. And so I'm hiding, I'm hiding in Christ, and hiding in this old hymn.

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

George Matheson

When Boulders Fall Like Rain Drops

I've never been one much for secrets or for facades, usually what you see is what you get with me. But my family, like all the others in the world I suppose, has some things it doesn't want to broadcast.

I'm well aware of how fast news can travel through churches, how prayer chains often work more like gossip networks, and I also know the sting and ache of judgment which more often than not comes with others knowing that your family (surprise surprise) isn't perfect. So this post is going to be in some places deliberately vague, to protect the privacy and sanity of those directly involved in the current crisis. I do want to share some things because I know that my real friends, the ones that genuinely care, deserve better than to have silence gnaw on their hearts and let the Enemy stretch their minds with all kinds of dark and dire fantasies.

Last Sunday, or July 6th, my family got a call that one of our own had a psychotic episode where he quietly threatened to kill himself if he didn't receive what he demanded. This person's immediate family rallied around them, and took them to the hospital where the attending physician wisely made the decision to admit the person having the episode into the psychiatric wing of the hospital for stabilization and evaluation.

Remember the scene in the movie The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when Peter signals to the gryphons to start out and they fly in formation, carrying the great chunks of stone in their paws and then they let them go effectively doing to the White Witch's army what Germany was doing to London at the beginning of the movie? Down on the evil hoard came great chunks of stone that couldn't be deflected or reasoned with or persuaded to fall elsewhere. It is still one of my favorite scenes, and I cheer every time I watch it.

This week has felt like we've been on the receiving end of that bombardment. Every day there have been phone calls, sometimes it's nothing but the other half of the family out there, really going through the meat grinder wanting just to be encouraged by the rest of us, and more often than not it's one of them calling in to report on what's going on with the family member in the ward.

Everyone feels responsible, everyone is second guessing themselves from the person's siblings to their parents. On top of this stress comes the stress about paying for their stay, and for the MRI that needs to be done to determine some things. Thankfully the one doctor who is in charge of the others assigned to the individual is working to get the cost lowered, because the insurance won't pay for it.

It's been a long week, and it's really not over yet.

Interestingly enough, the past couple of weeks, close on a month have been pointing in this direction so while the incident came as a shock, the fact that things have changed with this individual that we all love so much, wasn't.

Tomorrow, I'll try and share some of the ways that Christ has been showing up in the midst of the boulders.

I apologize again for the vagueness, but I don't want to hurt my family, just like I don't want to leave my friends in ignorance.

For now,

Scribe.

If only it were true

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Blaise Pascal

For those that have been so kind as to make certain that I haven't fallen off the face of the world (kinda hard considering its' round and not flat) I offer my thanks. I'm working on a post that will hopefully be a musing and coherently telling of what has been going on with me though for privacy's sake I can't go into everything. If I were the main character, the primary mover, well then I would let the gates flash open and the whole of the story gush out, tears and blood and puss all mixing. Fortunately and unfortunately I am a bit player in the drama that has taken my family by the scruff of our collective necks and shaken them. Can you have collective necks? Hmm.

I can say that my writing is going well, I'm really enjoying outlining/storyboarding and those closest to me that know as much of the plot as I do have been wonderful in goading me on and making sure I work on it and don't allow myself to be lulled into Summer complacency.

This past week has been especially hard as several vague problems in my family have hardened into darker reality and I find myself in the unenviable position of throwing the boulder sized problem back to Christ. Otherwise, they would crush me. I keep reminding myself that while this world and its' problems are much larger than myself, I serve a Powerful, Tender, Mighty Warrior who is much larger than this world.

My thanks to everyone who has prayed for strength for me and for my family. Even just tucking me in to the tail of your own prayers and asking Christ to bless me with the blessings you ask for your own family, as some have shared they do, means the world to me.

Really more later. Really really. I promise. Scribe's honor ;)

Scribe Reccommends

1 Peter 3:14-15 The Message.

"Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy."

The italics and the blue coloring are mine, for emphasis.

Wayne Batson started me thinking with his post about Atheism and then of course after digging around forever I managed to remember that scripture. At work, we have a display set up to help people better understand their faith so that they can share it with others.

With Ben Stien's Expelled coming out in theaters we have had people asking for books on Apologetics and Intelligent Design as well as requests for other formats covering the same things (ie DVD and CD) so I thought I would post my own recommendations here for anyone who is interested in this topic.

Books
------
Creation/Intelligent Design

In Six Days by: John Ashton

The New Answers Book :Edited by Ken Ham

The Lie:Evolution by: Ken Ham

Fatal Flaws: What Evolutionists Don't Want You To Know by :Hank Hanegraaff

The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates The Scientific Evidence that Points Towards God. By Lee Strobel.

Apologetics

Mere Christianity by: C.S. Lewis

Slandering Jesus: Six Lies People Tell about the Man Who Said He Was God: By Erwin Lutzer

Soul Cravings by: Erwin McManus

More Than a Carpenter by: Josh McDowell

Escape from Reason by: Francis Shaeffer

The Case for the Real Jesus by: Lee Strobel

The Case for Christ by: Lee Strobel

Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend by: Ravi Zacharias

The End of Reason: Ravi Zacharias

DVDS
------
Creation/ Intelligent Design

See Answers in Genesis Website

Apologetics
DVD-The Case for Christ
DVD-The Star of Bethlehem


Websites:
Answers in Genesis
Star of Bethlehem


Hope that helps anyone who is interested in pressing in further to this topic!

The Play's The Thing

So I'm still in Ohio :-D for those wondering, though that's not Ohio, that's Megan. I took that yesterday during rehearsal which went powerfully well. That's Prince Hamlet reading the cliff notes version of Hamlet to the Cadburry Easter Bunny. The play is "The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged." And this is the latter half of that play seeing as the front part of it was done last year and had to be delayed due to one of their number, one Eric by name, falling off the stage and breaking his leg.

Remember, it's bad luck to wish anyone in the theater ''good luck'' on the night of the performance and so you tell them to "Break a leg'' instead. Eric took that rather literally and while it was a stunning exit to make, it meant the rest of the play had to be postponed. Here's a visual of Eric

As you can see he's a man of many talents, including but not limited to, ghost busting. Healed up and ready to tackle the second half of the production, Eric stole the spotlight several times from Megan and Amie in turn stole it from him. Basically it was forty five minutes of delight as four hams (Megan, Eric, Aime and Tiffany) took us through a celebration of Shakespeare's best known play and moved from parody to original play, weaving in and out of character. William Shakespeare is beloved for many reasons, but at the heart of his work is the feel that the stories were written for the common man, and because of this people love him to this day. I'll close with some highlights. And I'm still not coming home.


Because Rhu (who is Hamlet and all in black with the Red Light Saber) loves Star Wars so much, it had to make it into part of the parody. That's Aime (Laertes) there impaled on her bright red saber.


There's Tiffany, Amie and Megan taking on the part of Hamlet where all . . .no no pretty much any moment in Hamlet all hades is breaking lose. So that is the final confrontation between Hamlet and his uncle/father/mother(King Claudius and Queen Gertrude) played by Tiffany and Aime's character (Laertes). Ah, but where you ask is the lovely Ophelia? Right here, Eric played her too!

Did I mention that I'm on Vacation?! :-D

So I've been in Ohio now for three days and I'm pretty sure I'm not coming back home. I mean why would I want to leave a place where they have awesome coffee, incredible ice cream, 65 cent hamburgers, fabulous old houses, friendly people and most importantly a place where I can dispose of the bodies of my enemies!



While they discourage the dumping of bodies and the picking of flora and fauna, they do let you walk through and become saturated with the scents and smells and the feeling of being in a fen (while the sign says bog, it really is a fen). Take a gander at some of the beauty I found within: